Prague Sprung

Finally. Finally I got down to it at 2:30 after being Shanghaied into booking a holiday. I played until around 6pm when I stopped for dinner (still hot enough to eat outside) and then went back 7-ish to finish off. It only needed one more turn to reach a conclusion. Technically the game didn't reach a conclusion but it was only going to go one way after that and it would have been a bit of a slog to  get to a game conclusion.

So four hours in total, which involved a fair amount of rule checking. I realised after a few rounds of combat that I had been doing it wrong, despite having played with these rules a few times before! The error involved me testing both sides reaction to combat, whilst I should have only been testing the 'passive'   (non-phasing) side. Doh! In that four hours I managed 25 turns. So 10 minutes a turn.

I'll let the pictures (plus captions) tell the story.

Turn 5: Ziethen's reserve hussars and Schwerin's columns (foreground) attempt to outflank the Austrians. In the middle distance the Austrian right wing led by von Browne redeploy to seal off the flank. It took three turns to activate Browne's wing, but they had the advantage of interior lines. In the background the Austrian left and reserve shift to the right. 

Turn 8: Schwerin's infantry begin to cross the Rokenitzer Bach in a co-ordinated fashion. The Austrian redeployment looks like it will be complete in a timely fashion.

Turn 9: the new Austrian position is ready.

Turn 12: Schwerin's men slowly advance after shaking themselves into proper lines. In the meantime the Austrian left has already lost a brigade to fortuitously accurate artillery fire. This allowed Bevern to deploy unhindered.

Meanwhile: Ziethen's hussars (L) and Schönach's heavies (R) charge into their opposite numbers. Ziethen is facing off against the redeployed Austrian Reserve under Hadik.

Turn 20: Several turns later, the Austrians have lost some infantry but their cavalry and reserve (mostly lights) hold their own. The infantry battle is slow to get going because the Prussians failed several activations. Combat between the opposing foot lasts several turns without major losses. The Prussian fusileers, who I decided would be classed as Trained but Wavering (i.e. two morale failures rather than 3 would eliminate them).

Close up of the previous picture

Bevern's men have finally broken through Kheul's left infantry, and advance on a battery. This was probably the crisis point of the battle. The Prussian left wing had delayed crossing the Rokenitzer Bach but then advanced to keep the Austrian left wing cavalry and an infantry division pinned, whilst Bevern broke through. The Prussian artillery on the left also did good work keeping the Austrian cavalry at bay.

 

Turn 22: Zithen's boys have taken a hammering. They became the first 'wing' to have to take a wing morale test. They passed it twice before fleeing.

Turn 25: Suddenly it all happened. The dam broke. Schönaich beat off the Austrian heavies and ploughed into the infantry. 3 Austrian brigades broke this turn, each rolling adjusted scores of 3 or less on 2D6. Then von Browne's wing broke on failing its Wing Morale test.

Schönaich and Schwerin have finally crushed von Browne's wing.

View of the Austrian left with the Prussian right wing advancing up the ridge.

A gap is torn in the Austrian line between Hadik's Reserve (left middle ground) and the battered Austrian Left Wing. A powerful column of Prussian infantry is ready to advance into the gap, but there will be no pursuit - both sides cavalry are fairly evenly matched and it has been a long day.

Austrian losses: 20 brigades

The Prussian toll: 9 brigades

So in the end a relatively ahistorical result, in that the Austrians suffered many more losses than the Prussians. A more decisive victory, but not one big enough, in my opinion, to lead to the fall of the Bohemian capital. Two other notable differences from history. Schwerin wasn't laid low by a shower of canister balls, and, David-in-Suffolk will be glad to know, von Browne lived to fight another day. Assuming the tuberculosis didn't carry him off.

A few quick observations on why the victory was more decisive than history. The Prussians were able to co-ordinate their attack better than they were able to historically. Maybe the scenario needs tweaking slightly to prevent or discourage this, possibly by leaving longer gaps between the arrival of the successive columns, or setting a limit to the number of game turns. The Prussians were also able to keep some of their artillery in action. The Austrians' guns barely got a shot in. With the rapid redeployment, the Austrian guns got stuck behind the infantry. Moral: leave more gaps for the guns. On the plus side for the Austrians, they did manage to seal off the area west of Sterbohol very well, with horse foot and guns. There was to be no repeat of Ziethen's winning charge into the Austrian heavies' flank.

In terms of numbers and quality of troops, the Prussians had 33 brigades to the Austrians' 30. Traditionally, the Austrians are credited with having more troops than the Prussians. I suspect this might be because assumptions are made about the strength of battalions and squadrons. The Austrian paper strength is higher per unit. I've used Duffy's numbers from his later works. For these he did extensive research in the Austrian archives. My belief is that these are more reliable. The Prussians also have the advantage of more elite infantry, though on the negative side, I rated their Fusileers (30% of the total infantry) as Wavering. They didn't get into action in the game. If the Austrians had broken the front of the Prussian infantry maybe the Fusileers would have collapsed quite quickly and that would have been the end of the Prussian Left Wing, and the second decisive Wing failure.

My key take away from this, is a reinforcement of my original thought that it is difficult to get the scenario right for this battle. It would probably take several play tests to get right. Maybe someone else can build on what I have done, and tweak and refine it. There are also options as to when to start the clock. One final comment: I didn't have enough space for Ziethen's envelopment on the southern side. To get round this I took his column off table and diced for the number of turns before he would reappear where he arrived historically. Ziethen arrived after five turns to find the Austrians had built and effective barrier that eventually did for the Hussar King.